New York Public Library & Bibliocommons Partner To Build a New Online Catalog; Test Version Now Available

The New York Public Library has partnered with Toronto-based software company Bibliocommons to completely transform its current online catalog, making it easier to discover the Library’s vast collections while also giving users the power to create reading lists, rate the latest books, and organize groups.

The new user-friendly NYPL catalog will debut in September, but starting on June 20, a test version can be accessed and evaluated by the public (at nypl.bibliocommons.com).

Features will include:

Greatly improved search engine performance

Personal “shelves” of books and reading lists for users

The ability to contribute reviews, tags and ratings

Shared content with the 120 libraries using Bibliocommons (so, for example, a user can read a review of a book from someone in Ottawa or Boston)

In addition, Bibliocommons is developing brand new content specifically for NYPL that will make the interface completely unique in the digital marketplace and an example and template for other libraries across the country and the world. New features in development include:

The power to build self-organizing groups around the collections

The opportunity to instantly volunteer online; for example, users might be asked to transcribe a part of a digitized book

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.